The present invention relates to a merchandise inventory management system that manages merchandise inventory by reading out both merchandise tags and a personnel tag.
When selling apparel, jewelry, shoes, handbags, wallets, and other merchandise, it is necessary to maintain a large number of sizes, colors, and the like of merchandise on hand in order to immediately meet customer demands.
However, because the display of a large quantity of a large number of different types of merchandise does not allow an aesthetically pleasing display, much of the merchandise stock is normally kept in a stockroom. In addition, with high fashion merchandise, because it is necessary to immediately satisfy the merchandise customer""s desire within the relatively short time frame in which the desire to purchase it remains, merchandise is either kept in a stockroom inside the retail shop or in a stockroom adjacent thereto, and a number of employees remove the merchandise from and add merchandise to the stockroom in accordance with customer demands.
Moreover, because a number of employees remove these articles from and add articles to the stockroom in accordance with customer demands, the task of accounting for the articles becomes arduous. And when employees remove articles from the stockroom based on customer demands, it is difficult to keep track of who removed what.
However, because only a limited amount of time is available for moving an article from the stockroom to the location requested by a customer based on his or her demand, it is not possible to spend much time for inventory management.
On the other hand, any attempt to remove articles from and bring articles into a stockroom quickly will typically result in less reliable inventory management. Therefore, the removal and return of articles must always be accurately conducted, and thus inventory management and the management of the removal and return of articles are important and burdensome issues for a retail store.
Because of this, a control method has been proposed in the past that produces a removal voucher when an article is being removed, and uses the removal voucher at the spot where the article is brought back in to determine if the information on the removal voucher matches the article being brought in. An article removal control system has also been proposed that uses theft prevention tags.
As shown in FIG. 7, a conventional merchandise inventory management system is comprised of a theft prevention tag 10 that is attached to merchandise, loop antennas 4, a theft prevention tag reading device 11, and an alarm device 12. When the theft prevention tag 10 is passing through an aisle 1, which is surrounded by wall surfaces 2 in which the theft prevention tag reading device is installed, the system detects the theft prevention tag 10, issues an alarm by means of the alarm device 12, warning of an unauthorized removal.
A conventional merchandise inventory management system constructed in this manner issues an alarm only when an article with its theft prevention tag intact is being removed from the premises.
With a conventional merchandise inventory management system constructed in this manner, a theft prevention tag is attached to merchandise in order to deal with the problem of shoplifting merchandise out of the store, and a device that detects the theft prevention tag at the entrance/exit of the store is provided. During normal sale of merchandise, the theft prevention tag is removed at the cash register.
On the other hand, when a number of store employees remove articles from and add articles to a stockroom inside a store or adjacent thereto in accordance with customer demands, these removals are handled as legitimate.
However, in this situation, the theft prevention tag will be removed, and the person handling the merchandise cannot be identified. Even when a conventional theft prevention tag is used, there is a problem in that it is not possible to clearly assign the responsibility for the merchandise to anybody after it leaves the stockroom because the person removing the merchandise cannot be identified.
In addition, with the method of using a removal voucher, it takes time and effort to produce the voucher and to confirm that the merchandise removed and the merchandise brought in are the same, as a result making the customer wait.
One objective of the present invention is to provide an improved merchandise inventory management system that discourages theft during the transportation of merchandise and the like by automatically recording and verifying the person removing the merchandise and the merchandise being removed.
Such a merchandise inventory management system preferably comprises a merchandise control ID tag that is attached to merchandise and stores merchandise identification data, a personal ID tag that stores data that identifies an employee and has a storage area into which the aforementioned merchandise identification data can be written and from which said data can be read, a read/write device that reads data from and writes into the aforementioned merchandise control ID tag and personal ID tag, and a verification device that verifies the merchandise identification data read out from the aforementioned merchandise control ID tag and personal ID tag by the read/write device; wherein at the location from which merchandise is to be removed, the merchandise identification data is read out from the merchandise control ID tag on the merchandise to be removed by the employee and stored in the personal ID tag; and at the location into which the merchandise is to be brought in, the merchandise identification data is read from the merchandise control ID tag on the merchandise to be brought in by the employee and the merchandise identification data stored in the personal ID tag is read, which are then verified against each other.